How to Get People to Care About Stuff

Harnessing the unexpected is the key to designing a successful engagement campaign

Jo Layne Skillman
Modus

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Photo: Rawpixel/Getty Images

FFor eight years I’ve been designing logos, brands, and engagement campaigns for a brand strategy and creative agency called Black Sheep. We’re called Black Sheep for all the reasons you might guess: We do things differently. We’re ahead of the curve. We break the rules. Blah, blah, blah, insert predictable design agency phrase here.

But here’s the thing: We DO do things in an unexpected way. Because when you build an engagement campaign, you have to differentiate your clients from everyone else or it won’t work. You won’t actually engage anyone. No one will connect with what you’re doing. And you won’t be able to stay in business long enough to employ the same person for eight years.

Black Sheep’s tagline is “We activate people around things that matter.” Believe me when I say I’ve got a ton of talking points around the second half of that sentence. We’re a social impact company and a B corp (B for benefit), so of course I can talk about the “things that matter.” But you’re a designer; you’ve probably got social good in your DNA and a whole lot of other people you can talk to about making a dent in the world. So today we’re talking about the first half of the tagline, because I think the…

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Jo Layne Skillman
Modus
Writer for

Creative & brand director. Piemaker, occasional speaker, restorer of found objects. joskillman.com